By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

PURPOSE AND CONTENTS OF THE BOOKThis book is a study of the scientific article in English, French, andGerman from 1665 to the present. It focuses on the disciplines ofbiology, chemistry, and physics and how the style and presentation aswell as argumentation has changed from articles written by and for avery small group of people who were members of scientific societies inEngland and France to the incredibly specialized prose written for ahighly specialized international audience today.

Chapter 1 and the appendices outline the purpose and methodology usedin the study. The authors selected 200 articles from the 17th century,500 from both the 18th and 19th centuries, and 600 from the 20thcentury. The articles came from the most elite journals covering themajor branches of the sciences and were, roughly, evenly dividedbetween English German and French. Within this sample, 10 linepassages from 1800 articles were analyzed for style and 430 completearticles were examined for presentation and argument. One interestingproblem the authors described was the fact that it was considerablyharder for them to find a representative sample of research articlesin French and German written in the twentieth century than it was tofind English articles written during the same period.

Chapter 2 focuses on style and presentation, and chapter 3 on argumentin 17th Century England and France (much of the writing in Germany wasstill done in Latin at this time). During this period tables andgraphs as well as citations began to be used, although the latter arerare and are not consistent. During this period, French and Englishboth showed began to show a movement toward a more impersonal style,with the objects of investigation given more prominence in the textthan the person observing and recording them. Arguments were primarilymade by observation, rather than experiment; and fewer than half thearticles offered any theoretical discussion to give weight to thefacts asserted.

In chapter 4, the authors say that, in the 18th Century, the style ofwriting becomes increasingly less personal; complex noun phrases assubjects begin to be used, and a number of reader-friendly featuresbecome more standard, such as headings, captions for visuals, andintroductions and conclusions that place the study in a context. Inchapter, 5 the authors point out that the style of argument in thiscentury was very similar to that of the previous one; however, thelast 25 years of the century brought about dramatic changes includinga rise in standards for reporting and arguing for experimentalresults.

Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the 19th century. During this period thestyle of writing becomes less personal and more formal with headings,equations separated from the text, and citations becoming moreformalized. The arguments become more complex, with observations andexperiments being used to build theory and texts and visualsincreasingly integrated into arguments.

In chapters 8 and 9, the authors demonstrate how scientificcommunication evolved in the 20th century into a highly specializedregister designed to succinctly communicate technical messages to small groups of highly trained readers. Argumentation, the authors argue, is largely similar to the way it appeared in the 19th century, but the last 25 years have brought about a rise in standards for reporting on and arguing for experimental results. The greatest change in style is the use of highly complex nominals; in addition, the length of sentences and number of clauses per sentence decreased. Arguments are now made through the use of numerous citations, rigorous descriptions of methodology and results, and visuals such as graphs and photographs.

Chapter 10 concludes the book by arguing that scientific prose nowappears to be objective largely because of its move from descriptionsof people to descriptions of objects. Finally, the authors propose anevolutionary model, based on a version of selection theory, to accountfor the changes in scientific prose over the last three centuries.

CRITICAL EVALUATIONThe authors take great pains to point out that their book is arhetorical analysis of the development of scientific prose during thelast 350 years. However, they define rhetoric quite narrowly byconcentrating exclusively on style, presentation and argument. Onecertainly could have a broader definition of rhetoric that includedsuch things as material conditions and social determinants of writing.If the authors had done this, then they would have been able todiscuss the ways that printing, paper, and other technologies, in theformer case, and peer review, in the latter case, have had come toplay such an important part in scientific writing.

In addition, the focus of this study is on the internal history ofscientific discourse. I believe that the book could have been mademore interesting by focusing on the external history of the threelanguages in question (English, French, and German) and how thisexternal history affected the production of scientific prose in eachof them.

I personally would have liked to have seen a more explicit descriptionof the methodology the authors used in their analysis of style. Forinstance, one of the elements that they decided to count were hedges,but they give only one example and do not even define what they meanby the term. If the authors had given more details of exactly whichitems they chose to analyze for style I would have been more impressedby their study.

The authors themselves admit (p. 11) that their use of statistics isquite unsophisticated when compared to work done by Atkinson (1999)and Hyland (1998, 2000). However one needs to keep in mind thepopulations that the authors were trying to make generalizations aboutbefore making any criticisms. Gross, et al. were working with threelanguages over a 350 year time period in an attempt to describe howstyle, presentation, and argument were different in each of thecenturies within their sample. At least in my opinion, the authors didan admirable job doing this.

As far as audiences, this book should appeal to those interested inthe historical development of scientific discourse, especially thoseinterested in style, presentation, and argument. Because of itsemphasis on these rhetorical, rather than linguistic elements, thebook will probably appeal more to rhetoricians than it will tolinguists.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
ABOUT THE REVIEWERScott J. Baxter's research interests include second language writing, theses and dissertations, as well as discourses of computer science. He is currently finishing his PhD in English language and linguistics and writing studies at Purdue University. Prior to coming to Purdue, he worked as a librarian in the eleventh largest pretrial detentionfacility in the United States for six years and, after that, taughtlinguistics and EFL at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland for threeyears. These experiences encouraged him to pursue a researchcareer that focuses on multicultural and second language literacypractices. More information can be found about Mr. Baxter at hiswebsite http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~baxters/